As you can see, I am clearly not a yak. OK, so I do have extremely thick dark hair, I really enjoy a good salad, and after runs I get a little smelly, but I can assure you I’m bipedal and merely dream of living in the Himalayas. So why the Yak? How much does “silly yak” sound like Celiac? Bingo!

I have Celiac disease which is this goofy autoimmune disease where if I eat even a miniscule amount of gluten my immune system literally wages war on my intestines. So to avoid that I live on a gluten free diet, and find every day to be easier than the day before. I’m always learning new things about it, and honestly gluten free food is delicious. Especially macarons. Mostly macarons.

I have a serious addiction to long distance running. It all started when I decided it might be nice to relieve some stress from life by walk/jogging a couple laps in the campus recreation center, setting aside the fact that working out often was also an excuse to spend time with my now husband. At first I could barely keep running for 1/8 of a mile, which then became a challenge. I was going to get a mile, dangit! Then 1 turned into 2, which turned into 3 and so on. At this point for me running is a mixture of a party in my head, meditation, and just seeing how fast/far I can go for the heck of it because it’s fun.

I’m also an aerospace engineer and work at NASA, which means I really like math, science, space and robots. A lot. So much that these topics may sneak in even though this is a running/food blog. I’m only a little sorry.

Favorite distance? Somewhere between 13 and 15 miles. Favorite color? Green. Favorite season/weather to run in? All. Bring it on, mother nature! The Yak is running!